


Growing Pains

by orphan_account



Series: A Study In Fatherhood [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Gay Will Byers, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lonnie Byers’ A+ Parenting, these tags makes this sound darker than it is, well i guess it IS kind of dark but nothing that isn’t already in the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 16:13:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19976884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: 14 year-old Will resents Lonnie Byers. He’s angry. He has been for a while, blood simmering below his diaphragm, shouts pent up into a corner of his lungs. He hasn’t seen Lonnie in nearly six years and hopes he never has the misfortune of changing that.





	Growing Pains

It used to be quiet. 

Will wouldn’t say he remembers all of it. He had been so young, and he’d pushed some memories so far into the back of his head that he isn’t able to reach them anymore. 

But he still remembers the quiet. How it would lay like a thick sheet over the Byer’s household, when both Will and Jonathan were holed up in their respective activities. And how it would feel forbidden to speak in a tone above a whisper. Lest their voices overpower the fragility of the house and shatter the windows and television. 

He also remembers the fear. It partners alongside stillness, Will thinks. Not the kind of fear that comes from watching a jump-scare in a scary movie. But, more, in the quiet lull before the Big Bad pops out. An elongated breath of silence where your heartbeat isn’t racing, but rather stills and plummets icy cold in your chest. 

6 year-old Will likes his Dada. He helps him with his homework and plays catch with him and does the thing where he swings Will around in circles by the arms. His Dada is a nice man, but Will thinks he likes his Mama more. Sometimes Dada gets too loud when Will is trying to go to sleep, or he will drink too much juice (Mama says it’s juice, but Will doesn’t know what kind. He doesn’t like it) before bed and get silly, or Will or Jonathan will make a mistake and he will give them a shove and yell at them if they cry about it. 

He always says sorry after, once he and Mama get done shouting. 

8 year-old Will doesn’t hate his Dad like Jonathan does. He and Mom fight more than ever now, but sometimes when it gets too much he’ll leave with Will and his brother and they’ll go out to get ice cream. He even lets Will get as many toppings as he wants; Mom only ever lets him get one. 

His Dad takes him to baseball games now. Will doesn’t enjoy them that much. He finds them dull and, no matter how many times his Dad tries to explain, Will never fully understands the rules. But he goes anyway because his Dad already bought the tickets and really, it isn’t all that bad. Sometimes their team will win, and his Dad will jump up and yell along with the rest of the crowd. It’s a good kind of yelling, Will knows, but sometimes it’s hard to hear the difference. 

12 year-old Will doesn’t have a father. He left four years ago and took the stillness with him. Which is ironic, because the stillness was only present when he was passed out on the couch or out somewhere. The Byers residence feels like it’s finally breathing. Will’s drawings are displayed proudly on the refrigerator, Jonathan had saved up and bought a camera. A shiny, fancy one that their father would’ve called “prissy” or “faggotish”. 

(Will knows what those words mean now, and why his dad called him them. He isn’t, though. 

His dad never knew Will, he decides. Not really. He didn’t have a say in what Will was, and he was determined to be anything other than what his father had spent years calling him. Will’s parents didn’t raise a faggot, and his best friend Mike Wheeler didn’t make him blush.)

His Mom smiles beautifully now. Will remembers the days when all she did was sit at the kitchen table with a cigarette between her fingers and take slow, shaky breaths until her hands stopped quivering. Everyone in the family knew she had troubles with anxiety. His father never seemed to care. 

Will is overjoyed to see his Mom looking so radiant. He looks up to her; she‘s strong, loving, gorgeous, empowering, and essentially everything skinny and timid Will Byers, standing a couple inches below the five feet line, could ever dream of being. 

One time, he asked her why she married their father if they didn’t love each other. She took a long drag of her smoke before responding, and said that maybe they were in love, once. That it was hard to tell. She’d made a mistake marrying him, but it’s been resolved now. 

Not fixed, but resolved. 

14 year-old Will resents Lonnie Byers. He’s angry. He has been for a while, blood simmering below his diaphragm, shouts pent up into a corner of his lungs. He hasn’t seen Lonnie in nearly six years and hopes he never has the misfortune of changing that. 

Will has never been one to lose his temper. He’s a gentle soul and protests at the idea of killing a fly on the wall (much to his Mom’s exasperation). He’s suffered abuse, bullying, and neglect. He’s gone through the Upside Down and come out alive. He was possessed last year and still managed to pull through. And he was only able to do it all because he had Mike by his side. 

Then Mike gets a girlfriend. 

They start off strong and Will tries not to be bitter about it. Mike and El have just been separated for over a _year_ , it’s only natural that they spend some time alone together, he tells himself. _He doesn’t owe you anything._

Only, the two of them just keep going, leaving the rest of The Party in the dust behind them. Especially Will. 

It’s just over eight months before he snaps. That’s approximately 34 1/2 weeks. 243 days, to be precise. Not that Will’s been counting. 

He just wants _one_ day with his friends, playing D&D like the good old days. He thought that doing something they used to love would help rekindle the bond that seemed lost between them. Alas, of course, they were too focused on their girlfriends (or ex-girlfriend, in Mike’s current case). 

The simmering anger in Will’s stomach turns to boiling as he stomps up the stairs leading out of Mike’s basement. He doesn’t even bother saying goodbye to Mrs. Wheeler on his way to the garage. It didn’t matter that it was pouring sheets outside, he just wanted to go home. Or maybe he wanted to go back inside and give Mike and Lucas a piece of his mind. He didn’t know. He wanted to _hit_ something. 

_“It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!”_ Mike jabs the final puncture wound after he follows Will to the garage. Like a balloon, Will‘s breath deflates from his lungs. His insides feel small. 

Mike isn’t standing over Will anymore. Lonnie Byers is. Big and gruff and reeking of alcohol. Throwing slurs and fists left and right. Will has to hold back from punching him in his greasy, ugly nose. 

Then his vision fades back to Mike, and Will is surprised and a little scared to find that the urge doesn’t fade. 

Instead of acting on his rage, he rides away, not giving Mike the satisfaction of looking back. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind he can hear his dad calling him a coward.


End file.
